Slog

News & Arts

Line Out

Music & the City
at Night

« SL Letter of the Day: MMF Fright Ni… | How Many Days Until Hockey? »

Monday, August 22, 2011

Crime / City Mayors of Washington's Largest Cities Join McGinn's Crusade Against Backpage.com

Posted by Cienna Madrid on Mon, Aug 22, 2011 at 2:48 PM

In a letter sent today (.pdf), seven mayors from around Washington State—including Marilyn Strickland of Tacoma and Mayor Mary Verner of Spokane—joined Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn in asking that the adult-service website Backpage.com "take steps to prevent the use of Backpage.com for underage sex trafficking by requiring in-person verification of any prospective escort advertiser's ID, as well as proof of identity and age for anyone pictured in an escort ad."

Owned by Seattle Weekly parent company Village Voice Media, Backpage.com currently requires advertisers only check a box verifying that persons featured in escort ads are 18 years or older.

But Washington mayors are saying that bar is too low. They write that "our cities have continued to find advertisements on your site that reflect underage sex trafficking in recent weeks." In addition to the 22 cases of underage prostitution in Seattle linked to Backpage.com, they continue, "The Tacoma Police Department reports that they are currently working on 16 cases of juvenile prostitution involving 14 persons who had Backpage.com ads."

Backpage.com had previously agreed to several of McGinn's requests, including: hiring employees to comb the site for suspected cases of child prostitution, implementing online age-verification systems (similar to those used for selling alcohol and tobacco), allowing Seattle police to train Backpage.com employees by phone, and cooperating with law enforcement in investigations.

McGinn has said these concessions should supplement, not supplant, the call for in-person age verification. The mayors concur, adding, "We believe this practice is substantially more effective at rooting out underage sex trafficking."

FacebookShare

Comments (11) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment

Can anyone tell me how Backpage differs from The Strangers' escort ads? I assume there is a difference as Mayor McGinn isn't targeting The Strangers media empire. Thanks!

Posted by ballard dude on August 22, 2011 at 3:13 PM

@1, we require people to come to our office and present their IDs if they want to place an escort ad.

Posted by Cienna Madrid on August 22, 2011 at 3:46 PM

@1, all the earlier coverage clued me in a bit. I think this is right: anyone wishing to place or be mentioned in a Stranger online escort ad must appear in person at the Stranger office with proof of age. There are as many as a couple dozen online escort ads at any given time on the Stranger website.

Backpage, using the methods Cienna outlines above, provides online advertising to escorts in more than 600 cities around the world. There are up to eleventy kajillion escort ads online at any given time on the Backpage website. If you remember what Craigslist was like back before the fundamentalists hounded Craig Newmark into shutting down his escort section - that's the scale of the business Backpage is operating.

Mayor McGinn would like Backpage to acquire a physical location in each of these 600 worldwide cities for each prospective escort to visit in person with proof of age. I wonder how that pencils out for Backpage.

Posted by gloomy gus on August 22, 2011 at 3:49 PM

Is Ashton Kutcher on the list? Oh and didnt Backpage.com already comply with the demands of Mayor McGinn? Looks like the Mayor has another White Whale to chase.

Posted by Kinison

on August 22, 2011 at 3:56 PM

How it pencils out?

Just look at the massively reduced ad revenue in the much thinner Seattle Weekly.

It pencils out great.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on August 22, 2011 at 3:57 PM

@5, I'm not talking scarce print ads, just the massive online presence. And I'm sure the answer for McGinn is, "who cares? It's kiddie slavery." I just find it interesting how the mayor keeps the scale of what he's asking backpage to do out of frame so well. And it's always interesting to see Slog making sure not to mention it too.

Posted by gloomy gus on August 22, 2011 at 4:11 PM

@3 Exactly.

This seems more like a political vendetta than anything.

Posted by giffy on August 22, 2011 at 4:46 PM

Or perhaps a nice payback to the paper that got his useless one term ass in office.

Posted by giffy on August 22, 2011 at 4:52 PM

So @3,7,8 you are ok with status quo... that being the personals page of backpage.com, a site where pedophiles go to rape children, continue to operate as is free of any restrictions? What is the downside of requiring in person age verification?

Posted by hannahb on August 22, 2011 at 6:04 PM

While I'm not sure whether it should be in person verification or not, age verification should definitely go beyond merely checking a box that says you are 18 or older. I think that any steps to eliminate exploitation and human trafficking from sex work is the best policy. Sex work should be a respected occupation, just like anything other occupation, as long as it's done by adults who freely choose their trade. I'm all for throwing the pimps, traffickers and exploiters out of business. Independent adult sex workers should be able to ply their trade freely without legal repercussion.

Posted by Smell on August 22, 2011 at 7:21 PM

@9 It would make a business like that impossible. There is no way a site like Backpage.com can be profitable doing that. And yes the Stranger can do it, but they have dozens a month at most, almost all local not hundreds of thousands spread all over the country. Do they need offices in every city in the country? You might as well ask why you can talk to the owner when you go to eat at Skillet but not McDonalds.

Stopping sex trafficking is a noble goal but running a company out of business is not the way to do it.

McGinn is using an emotionally charged issue to reward his supporters and go after those not so kind. It's transparent and ridiculous, but as the tunnel vote showed, the City has lost patients with his asshattery.

Posted by giffy on August 22, 2011 at 7:46 PM